Learning to Love Again After Betrayal Trauma

When someone important in your life diminishes your trust, that’s betrayal trauma. Often this is a caregiver or romantic love interest who hurts you in such a way you feel like you may never recover.

Betrayal trauma causes so much damage because it’s inflicted by those we depend on for food, shelter, love, or safety. As a result, it’s more difficult to let them go.

As a child, if you were betrayed by a caregiver you had no choice but to stay. With a romantic partner, you may believe you have no choice still.

Because of the lack of love in your primary caregiver relationship, you attract romantic relationships that won’t meet your needs. Ironically, you stay because you believe you need the relationship to survive.

You might minimize or suppress betrayal trauma because you know you won’t leave. Admitting the betrayal would force you to wrestle with that decision.

As a child, you would have been forced to suppress or minimize parental betrayal. You had no way to leave so had to find a way to survive and denial helped you with that.

This denial of poor treatment becomes conditioned in you and you expect less in romantic relationships. Things other people insist on or take for granted, you wouldn’t dream of asking for.

Betrayal trauma feels like home

Being abused or neglected feels like home to you even though it feels bad. This exacerbates the already suppressed anger and resentment inside you which leads to chronic pain and illness.

But betrayal trauma in childhood doesn’t always lead to codependency in adulthood. It can also lead to a staunchly self-sufficient lifestyle in which you refuse to make yourself vulnerable again.

When we’re talking about attachment, this most closely relates to the avoidant style. Characterized by a belief that no one else can meet your needs (because no one did in childhood), you decide to “go it alone”.

Or you’ve experienced betrayal trauma in relationships one too many times. So, you’ve decided to give up on finding true love because it hurts too much.

Many choose to focus on work as a substitute for a healthy romantic relationship. They believe (and have evidence) that love and career success cannot co-exist.

Their jobs give them the appreciation and recognition they don’t get in relationships. They may be afraid to pursue a satisfying relationship because the fear of being hurt again is too terrifying.

As long as we deny our heart’s desire for a satisfying love relationship, we’ll never find it. Healing your attachment style is one way to move toward the love you want.

This might mean practicing self-compassion which entails acceptance of all your emotions. Often, betrayal trauma makes us bury or run away from complex feelings.

You may also try being more vulnerable with people you trust. That means opening up more instead of hiding how you feel for fear of rejection.

It also entails getting support from someone who understands these dynamics and can coach you to overcome them.

My story of emotional neglect

I experienced deep betrayal trauma at the hands of both my parents. As a result, I entered into a relationship at age 19 with someone severely emotionally neglectful.

Despite his constant betrayal, I stayed with him for 18 years, married for 11 of those, and bore two children. His outrageous neglect felt like home and I believed I deserved no better.

And since emotional neglect was not yet discussed, I had no support for my experience. This made me feel more wrong and isolated with each passing day and slowly drove me a little bit crazy.

Even suicidal ideation would not make me leave. Finally, about 3 years after those suicidal thoughts began, the marriage ended at his request.

But, of course, both families made me the bad guy and quickly returned me to the scapegoat status of my family of origin. My father accused me of “breaking up the family” with my divorce.

The fear of leaving due to economic hardship hit me in the face as my ex used his lawyer to prevent me from receiving fair and lawful support for our children.

Surviving financial abuse and neglect as a single mother kept me too busy to worry about a new love interest. I decided to invest my limited emotional capacity in my children.

HEALING after betrayal trauma

Still single by the time my first child reached adulthood, I pined for a relationship but felt scared to enter into one. That’s the hallmark of disorganized attachment style (deep desire for combined with fear of intimacy).

So, I worked hard to change my attachment style through the self-compassion, vulnerability, and support suggested above. After some lingering avoidance, I finally “earned” a secure attachment style.

Secure means knowing what you want and requiring that instead of bending yourself to please someone else. It means understanding your values and finding someone who shares those (not changing yours to match someone else’s).

It’s noticing red flags and asking direct questions about them. Not pretending they don’t exist, or treating them as challenges to overcome.

I say all this to let you know there is healing after betrayal trauma. And to reiterate the fact that focusing on yourself and your own needs is the key to getting what you want in life.

Looking for help healing betrayal trauma? Watch my free masterclass on the 4-step process for healing your childhood trauma.